“Am I?”

“That I serve the Germans, but find them vulgar.” He shrugged. “They are vulgar. There is little to do with such vulgar people but make money off them. More people should understand that. Most of Lille chooses spite and starvation over practicality and money. They embrace the motto, to quote Baudelaire, of ‘I’d sooner while alive invite the ravens to drain the blood from my filthy corpse’ than serve a German. But pride like that will not leave you the victor in the field.” He caressed the spine of his ledger with that long finger. “It will leave you the carcass on which the ravens dine.”

Eve nodded. What else could she do? Her blood thumped cold and slow in her ears.

“The French can be practical, do not misunderstand me,” he continued. “We do better, historically, with practicality than pride, when we can manage it. Practicality got the head off our king. Pride got us Napoleon. Which was the better plan, in the long run?” He looked at her, considering. “You, I think, are a practical girl. Risking a lie on an identity card for a greater potential gain—that is practicality underscored with boldness.”

She didn’t want him thinking about how well she could lie. “Are you f-finished with the ledger, monsieur?” she hedged.

He ignored that. “Your middle name is Duval, I seem to recall? Baudelaire had a Mademoiselle Duval of his own, though she was a Jeanne, not a Marguerite. A Creole girl he plucked from a gutter and turned into a beauty. He called her his Black Venus, and she inspired a good deal of obscenity and passion in these pages.” Patting the volume he’d set aside as she entered. “Honing beauty is more interesting, perhaps, than acquiring beauty already polished. ‘Many a gem lies hidden in darkness and oblivion, far, far away from picks and drills . . .’”

Another direct, unblinking gaze. “What would picks and drills uncover in you, I wonder?”

He knows, Eve thought in a moment of pure, frozen panic.

He knows nothing.

She exhaled. Lowered her lashes. “Monsieur Baudelaire sounds v-very interesting,” she said. “I shall try to r-read some. Will that be all, m-m-m-m—”

“Yes.” He handed back the ledger. Eve closed the door and sagged the moment she was out of sight. She was sweating head to toe, and for the first time since arriving in Lille, she wanted to panic. Panic, cower, and run. Anything, just get away.

Violette was ensconced in the apartment when Eve finally returned from work, stowing her Luger beside Eve’s in the false-bottomed bag. One look at Eve’s white face and she said with a certain resignation, “Nerves?”

“N-no.” Eve waited until they’d completed the ritual of checking window and door for loiterers, anyone who might eavesdrop on the room as insulated though it was by derelict buildings or stone walls on all sides. “My employer suspects me,” she said, low-voiced.

Violette looked up sharply. “Has he been asking questions?”

“No. But he makes conversation. With me, someone who ought to be utterly b-b-beneath him. He kn-knows something’s not right.”

“Pull yourself together. He can’t read minds.”

I think he can. Eve knew the thought was ridiculous, but couldn’t banish it.

“Lili gets good information out of you, so don’t turn yellow-bellied now.” Violette climbed into her makeshift pallet, plucking off her round spectacles. Eve bit her lip to stop herself from begging reassignment, anywhere in Lille where she wouldn’t be under René Bordelon’s unblinking eyes . . . But she couldn’t face Violette’s scorn, and she could not let Lili down. Lili needed her at Le Lethe, and so did Captain Cameron.

Top-class work.

Pull yourself together, she lashed herself. What happened to I am Evelyn Gardiner and this is where I belong? You lied to René Bordelon once, and you can go on doing it.

“Maybe he’s not watching you out of suspicion.” Violette’s voice floated up through the dark, already filled with yawns. “Maybe it’s lust.”

“No.” Eve laughed curtly, bending to unbutton her shoes. “I’m n-n-not elegant enough. Marguerite Le Fran?ois is a c-country mouse. Too gauche for him.”

Despite Violette’s skeptical snort, she was very, very certain of that.

CHAPTER 13

CHARLIE

May 1947

There she was. My mother: lavender scented and beautiful as ever . . . only, the eyes behind the veil of her stylish blue hat were full of tears. That alone stunned me speechless as she enveloped me in a hug.

“Ma chère, how could you! Dashing off into a strange country!” She was scolding me, but there was the hug, her gloved hand rubbing my back as though I were a baby. She pulled back, giving me a shake. “To worry me like that, and for no reason!”

“There was a reason,” I managed to say, but she was hugging me again. Two hugs in as many minutes—my mother hadn’t hugged me in recent memory, at least not since before the Little Problem. Even longer. I didn’t quite mean for it to happen, but my arms stole around her cinched waist.

“Oh, chérie—” She pulled back, dabbing at her eyes, and I found my voice.

“How did you find me?”

“Your telephone call from London, you said you were looking for Rose. What else could that mean but that you were haring off to see your Tante Jeanne in Rouen? I took the boat and telephoned her when I arrived in Calais. She said you’d been and gone already, to Roubaix.”

“How did she know—” But I’d told her myself, hadn’t I? No, Tante, I’m not staying. I have to go to Roubaix. I’d been trying so hard not to shriek at her for how she’d thrown Rose out, I’d given myself away.

“It’s not a big place, Roubaix.” My mother gestured at the hotel court. “This is only the fourth hotel I’ve checked.”

What stinking bad luck, I thought, but some part of me was saying in a small voice, She hugged me.

“Tea,” my mother decided, just as she’d decided in the Dolphin Hotel in Southampton not even a week ago. A handful of days seemed like too small a time to contain Eve and Finn and everything I’d learned about Rose.

My mother ordered tea and then looked me over anxiously, shaking her head. “You look a mess! Have you been living rough? Mon Dieu—”

“No, I have money. I—I pawned Grandmaman’s pearls.” The shame of that stung me suddenly; the only thing I had of my mother’s mother, and I’d traded it away for a wild goose chase. “I can get them back, I promise. I have the pawn slip. I’ll pay out of my own savings.”

“I am just happy to know you weren’t sleeping in a ditch,” my mother said, waving the thought of her mother’s pearls away. That surprised me all over again. My mother, not caring about the pearls she’d always pointedly said should have been left to her? “Traveling alone across the Channel! Chérie, the danger!”